One down, one to go

Having seen fit — finally — to confirm attorney John Dowdell to the federal court in Tulsa, perhaps now the U.S. Senate can get around to placing Robert Bacharach on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

Both men had the backing of Oklahoma’s U.S. senators, Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, but the nominations got gummed up by Senate gamesmanship. Republicans held up many nominations made by President Obama, hoping Mitt Romney would win the presidency and submit his own nominations for those posts.

But Obama won. So this week the Senate voted 95-0 to place Dowdell on the federal bench.

Now Inhofe and Coburn need to push for Bacharach’s immediate confirmation. After all, he’s in line for a seat on the Denver court that’s been vacant nearly 2 1/2 years.